"Overhead": all the stuff companies don't really need. The CEO's fancy office. The CEO's expensive secretary, instead of just using Google Calendar and Expedia. And then there's, well, the CEO. Add it all up. Put it in the numerator. And the overhead is some percentage of revenues. And that number is good, bad, or ugly.
Companies of different sizes have different metrics. A huge company with 20 billion dollars in revs will have more overhead in total than a small company, but will likely have less in overhead as a percentage. Industries are different as well. Tech companies usually have less overhead; highly structured, vertically-oriented companies have more infrastructure, and more overhead. Small companies with minimum filing and legal and compliance and other drags on profitability have overhead that likely comprises a larger percentage of their totals.
Bottom line: profits good; overhead bad.
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Finance: What is overhead?14187 Views
finance a la shmoop. what is overhead? it's a bird it's a plane it's Shmooperman!
yeah okay we couldn't resist. any on its overhead but has nothing to do with [man wearing cape flies across the sky]
overhead. alright your company is slink Inc. you make yes of course slinkys. they
walk downstairs a loner in pairs and make a slinkity sound.
yeah those. your primary costs in making them are miles and miles and miles of
flattish wire that kind of smells funny. and then a twisty machine thing then you
heat them up so they remain in that slinky shape forever and well you're
pretty much. done sorta. you've made the product but like where does that product
to live? well you store it here in the slinky condo birthing chamber and you [slinky in a log cabin]
have to rent the warehouse where all of these things live until they get shipped
off to you know the good boys and girls and men with midlife crises all around
the world. all right well that rent is overhead. the shipping of the product
overhead. insurance you need to maintain so that if a slinky drops on someone's
head and spins their hair all around they have to shave or at least that's
the reason we're giving for our baldness at home. that insurance overhead. the
lawyers who had to defend that a head case yep overhead. overhead is basically
everything that isn't directly useful at least in getting a product built and
bought. and it's usually a fixed cost meaning that you can't usually get rid
of overhead no matter how hard you try. like rent lawyers insurance yeah go
negotiate with them. they charge what they charge each month and there's just
not a whole lot you can do about it even if you want it to. oh and the CEO of the [woman throws stacks of cash on a desk]
company the one who meets with Wall Street people and shakes hands with the
people at Amazon well she's overhead. - yeah they really
should put a warning on those things. [man frowns]
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